Oh man, thank goodness for Monster Hunter, because without it the Sea of Thieves withdrawals would be too much to bear.

I avoided playing in any of the early beta tests, because the way the game was described had me worried that there wasn’t enough depth, and that if jumped in too early, I’d find no reason to ever go back. I caved, though, and played in the most recent scale test. Just a wee bit, to get a feel for it.

None of my friends were available, so I left my fate to matchmaking for a galleon. I was immediately placed with three guys; one left right away, don’t remember his name, but the other two were a couple of British teens, Max and Peter.

Now I’d never met these guys before, but I’d end up spending the next three hours sailing the high seas with them, digging up treasure, practicing anchor-turning, trying to chase down other ships, and even just making up lyrics to the in-game pirate music we played as we sailed.

With what are, admittedly, a limited set of in-game tools/mechanics, I had so much fun I couldn’t stop talking about it for the rest of the night, regaling my wife with recaps of my pirate shenanigans.

Obviously I hope they continue to add things to do in the game. Things to collect, things to see, things to sail and different ways to destroy those things to sail. But for me, that’s all gravy. The amount of emergent adventure present with nothing more than a boat and the open ocean have more than sold me on the game at launch, and now I’m just dying for another little taste as soon as possible.

Xbox and PC cross-platform play is brilliant as well. Closer to launch I’ll post my username so that you can join me for some buccaneering if you want.

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Update: There are lots of clips and streams you can find from Sea of Thieves’ beta tests, but I thought this one was a particularly good example of the sorts of fun adventures that unfold in the game. None of this is scripted or dictated by quests or strict multiplayer rules; this is just what happens when you give people a great set of tools and let them loose.